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digital security

Man’s best friend does a terrific job of protecting your home. But when it comes to protecting your online accounts, your beloved pet is literally the worst choice possible.

Recently, Google conducted a study of 2,000 people to learn more about their methods for choosing account passwords. The research revealed a worrying fact: Most people choose passwords based on readily available information. This means a surprising number of accounts can be hacked using a few simple, educated guesses.

We know the limitations of passwords: They are difficult to scale, and managing truly secure passwords is a headache for administrators and end users. We also know that although there are alternate technologies for online authentication, passwords probably are here to stay.

Today our mobile phones are an extension of our lives and identities; we do everything on them from communicating with friends, shopping, banking, gaming to taking photographs. And as mobile phones become more sophisticated multi-purpose devices, not protecting them with a password can be likened to leaving your keys in your front door. All of the contents are vulnerable to theft

Our lives depend on the convenience of digital and require the security behind the scenes. Take contactless payment for example. Contactless payments are a faster, more convenient alternative to cash when making small purchases at fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and transport terminals.

BYOD, or “Bring Your Own Device,” allows employees to use their personal computing devices – like smartphones and tablets – to access work-related email, data, and networks. This is more convenient for employees, because they can access corporate email and data from anywhere at any time, and no longer need to have separate devices for work and home. BYOD can also result in higher productivity for on-the-go employees because they can pick and choose the technology options they like best.

More companies are adopting BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device (See the tip, “What is BYOD?”). Industry researchers at IDG estimate that 63% of companies already support smartphones for work use and 45% expect to add tablets too over the next 18 months. This is positive news for IT departments: they can actually strengthen logon and IT access security in their enterprise by capitalizing on BYOD and the increased use of smart devices in the workplace.

BYOD stands for “Bring Your Own Device,” a trend in enterprise organizations where employees bring their own computing devices – like smartphones and tablets – to the workplace and use them for access to email and to corporate networks and documents. Many companies are on board with BYOD: Industry researchers at IDG estimate that 63% of companies already support smartphones for work use and 45% expect to add tablets too over the next 18 months.

Two digits—1 and 0—lie at the heart of all of your electronic devices and services. Your iPhone or iPad, Android smartphone, PC or Mac, cable TV box, Wii and anything else you can name all work by translating everything you see, hear or do into those two digits. All the electronic services you use, from telephones and cable television to the Internet, also work with gazillions of 1s and 0s. Computer chips and software translate those digits into things we can see or hear, and take our inputs from phones, keyboards or cameras and translate them into digits.